I Really Like Fufu

Dear America

I was happy to hear from Porter in his email last week. I hope that wasn't a forced assignment;)

This week has been great. The new year is more celebrated than Christmas. People stay up all night partying and going to church revivals. They set off fireworks and play music really loud. Even louder than they usually do. One great benefit of the holiday season is that the power was on every night for a week in between Christmas and New Year. That was super nice.

In other news, I really like fufu. Like more than my Ghanaian companion. It's becoming an addiction or something, haha.

I'm truly grateful that I've been raised to have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. It carries a powerful witness that Jesus is the Christ, Joseph Smith is a true prophet, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true church on the earth today. I love the plain, straightforward manner that it teaches us how to be happy. The Bible can be trippy sometimes, but I can always count on the Book of Mormon to strengthen my testimony. Everyone here believes in the Bible, but very few (including members) have taken the time and the effort to gain a similar testimony of the Book of Mormon. Sometimes I feel like we really have to work to pull pure truth out of the Bible verses. But with the Book of Mormon, truth is sitting there in the open. No weird explanations needed. Elder Antwi loves to use the Bible; I love to use the Book of Mormon. Both of us know that the other guy is right. I'll be pretty good with a Bible when I get home.

I'll have time to answer those questions today, so that's good:

Have you seen any wildlife yet? Yes. Lots and lots of lizards, lots of goats, and very, very few mosquitoes. But the bites are always there. 

Do you always email from an internet cafe? Yes. I think the Bishop has a computer, but I haven't ever seen one in somebody's home. And the missionaries most certainly don't have one. So we always go to the cafe and pay for time on the computers. There's on cafe in Kejetia that all the missionaries call Kofi's place. It's the hub of all missionary activities on Mondays. Missionaries from all over the mission converge there, usually about twenty or thirty on any given Monday. So you can see pretty much anyone except for those in Tamale there occasionally. 

What else do you do on p-day? We soak our laundry, go to pull our sub from an ATM in town, email, finish our laundry, teach a few lessons, and buy/prepare our food for the week in the evening. 

How is laundry? Actually pretty relaxing. I listen to hymns or talks and just sit there and wash by hand. Depending on the week, it takes half an hour, an hour, or more after I've soaked the clothes. My hands haven't cracked or started bleeding from it yet, but I've heard that it sucks. 

How many missionaries are in your zone? How large of an area do you cover? The zone is probably 24 missionaries or so. Our district is really big (5 companionships) and Elder Antwi is the district leader. I don't think our areas are too huge in comparison to other missions, mainly because we only walk. But they're still big enough to keep us plenty busy, considering the way the population is packed in here. Probably five miles from end to end. It takes us about an hour to drive to Bantama, the zone headquarters.

Here's something to be grateful for: the power just went out, but my email was saved automatically. So be glad that happened, or it would only be like a sentence long for this week.

Happy New Year!

Elder Nelson

I was going to take a risk and send pictures this week, but it didn't work. So pretty much you'll get pictures on the occasion that I make it all the way in to Kofi's place. Sorry. But at least I have electricity right now.